Step-by-step Guide to Keyword Research Using Google Keyword Tool

After registering your domain name, the next step is to do a complete keyword research for your niche. This takes a while and might be very tedious but hang in there as this is one of the most critical stages.

During keyword research you will find out about keywords that get the most monthly searches, how competitive they are and whether they are paid highly in Adwords (if you are planning to monetize your website with Adsense).

I usually try to come up with categories first before doing in-depth keyword research.  If you have 4 categories in your website for example, you should find at least 20 keywords for each category.

Of course you can do more researching later once your website is up and running, but I find it always easier to have a long list of good keywords ready before planning any content writing.

Why Google Keyword (or Keyword Planner) Tool?

I choose Google Keyword Tool as it’s free, it’s not totally accurate, but so are even other paid keyword tools out there.

For people who are starting out and want to keep the costs to a minimum, Google Keyword Tool is perfect and will just do the job.

Note: In a few months the Keyword Tool will be replaced by Keyword Planner, however the principle is still the same. You will have to register for an Adwords account to be able to access this tool, which is a very easy process using your Google account. Please check out my Keyword Planner Tutorial and Review to know how to use this new tool for your keyword research.

You don’t have to submit any billing information or even verify the account to use the Keyword Planner tool.

The keyword research process, step by step

So here is how I do keyword research using Google Keyword Tool, step by step:

(A tutorial on doing keyword research with Keyword Planner tool can be found here)

Step 1: Move over to http://adwords.google.com/o/KeywordTool

Step 2: Begin with your main topic. In this case, I begin with my main area of interest “kitchen storage” as the website I want to do research for is in the “home organizing” niche.

Remember to tick “Exact search”, which are the exact terms that people enter in Google Search.

You can also alter the “Advanced Options and Filters” to choose the geographic area and language that you are targeting.

For example if I want to know how many German speaking people in Germany search for this term, I would modify this setting to cover that.

You can sign in to your Google Adwords account to skip the Captcha submit and to save the results.

Step 3: Picking out the winners

This is the most important step and also the most time-consuming one: picking out the right keywords that have high enough search volume.

You can sort the list by local or global searches and go through the list to find the most suitable keywords.

After you have chosen all the keywords you like, you can export your keyword ideas into a .csv file. I usually keep all of my keywords for a website in a single spreadsheet.

Criteria for a good keyword

Search volume

I usually have 2 sets of keywords to optimize for: the category keywords and article keywords.

The category keywords are the umbrella keywords for all the articles in the same topic. So if your website is about “home organizing”, the categories would be “kitchen storage”, “living room storage”, etc.

For the category I usually aim for at least 8000 global searches and at least 4000 local searches.

However with keywords for each article, my criteria is usually lower, I could go as low as 600 local searches per month, depending on how easy it is to create an article around that keyword.

Notice: The “Competition” column does not imply the difficulty to rank that keyword on Google Search but refers to how many people are bidding on that keyword.

If the “Competition” is Low, beware to use that keyword as there might not be enough relevant ads to display on your site.

The cost per click

If you are planning to monetize your blog with Adsense, you would want to look at the CPC (cost per click) that advertisers have to pay.

This is an estimation of how much Google Adsense gets paid when a visitor clicks on the Adsense advertisement on your site. You will get pay around 70% of that cost per click if I’m not wrong.

The easy way to check the competitiveness of your chosen keywords

There are many free and paid ways to assess the competitiveness of your keywords, however I’m showing you the easiest and fastest way to achieve this.

Step 1: Head to Google Search and enter your chosen keyword in quotes (“ ”). I choose the keyword “kitchen storage ideas” that I got from Google Keyword Tool.

Step 2: See how many search results are there for this exact keyword

For a keyword that has 3000 global searches, I usually aim for at most 100000 search results, some people go for even a higher number of results but I am less ambitious and tend to play safe

Note: There are actually a lot of ways to go about this. Many people like to use the allintitle: keyword command to check keyword competition, this will check for pages that have the keyword (broad) in the page’s title tag. If you choose to go this way, the search results would be a lot smaller. I usually go the other way though, for a less optimistic look as many websites will rank over you, even if they don’t have the keyword in their title.

Step 3: A quick assessment on the sites that appear on the first page

Install Seoquake, a great little free add-on for your browser that will display the necessary parameters on a webpage.

Hit “request parameters” and look for good signs, which are:

No .edu or .gov
At most 4 sites with PR 4 or higher
Have social media sites, Q&A or forums
At least 2 sites without exact keyword in their title
At least 2 sites that are under 2 years old and low PR
If you see 1-2 websites for the target keyword in the search result that seem weak or not optimized (the last 2 criteria), they might be good targets for you to outrank.

Below is a quick assessment for the keyword “kitchen storage ideas” that I have chosen previously.

The difficulty of this keyword to rank is medium as there are a few authority big media sites already on the first page.

However there are also 2 sites that I might be able to outrank.

Conclusion

I do use other paid keyword tools for keyword research task, and have used many over the years. However Google Keyword Tool is still a simple, easy to use and offers good keyword suggestions.

Even though the data is taken from Google’s database, which is not very updated, many other keyword tools, including paid tools, use this data to give suggestions also.

Therefore if you are or your small business is on a tight budget, Google Keyword Tool is an excellent tool to carry out keyword research tasks.

The keyword research process is a bit lengthy and boring, but it might be one of the most important steps for your online marketing efforts so take your time to discover and dig out invaluable gems for your website and blog.

Matt Cutts No Longer Head of Webspam Team at Google, BUT What He Taught Stays

On May 22, Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land shared the news that Matt Cutts is no longer the head of Webspam team at Google.

So Matt Cutts left Google, did he? Well… not exactly. Actually, he stays on leave, while other Google engineers and spokespeople step up as Google’s interactive faces with webmasters and search users.

According to Sullivan’s article, the new Head of Webspam Team at Google won’t be also a general spokesperson about listing issues like Cutts has been for years, because–

“It was never the case that the head of web spam should also be a general spokesperson on listing issues. That was just a natural synergy between Cutts being both knowledgeable about Google’s listing processes in general and his personal interest in taking that role.”

So, what happens of Matt Cutts’ long standing advice for webmasters while he was the Head of Webspam team?

That’s simple— the advice is here to stay.

There’s no reason why Cutts’ advice for webmasters, search users and SEOs should stop being useful just because he’s leaving his role at the Google Webspam team. Cutts’ advice has kept valid over the years and no matter how many changes in Google and in the SEO and Web Marketing fields have come with new discoveries and technologies, so we can safely assume we can continue to look up to Cutts’ advice for many years to come.

Below we make a summary of Matt Cutts’ advice for webmasters, SEOs and users he gave over the years.

Advice for webmasters

Webmaster’s integrity – Cutts’ main advice for webmasters is to maintain their own integrity when it comes to Web relationships. As Rusty Brick reported in 2013, Matt Cutts advised webmasters to NOT copy content from Wikipedia, verbatim, but to work out their own content on the basis of Wikipedia-based research.

Sometimes, all it takes to rank well in Google is an honest effort and a real drive to bring your users quality content.

On-topic, related content – In January this year, Sergio Aicardi published an article for the Content Marketing Institute titled “7 Key Pieces of Advice about Web Content Strategy from Matt Cutts“. The article is thorough and it sums up most of Cutts’ advice for webmasters interested in serving good content for their users (and get a better chance to rank in Google as well). From jargon to guest posting, Aircardi explains Cutts’ view of what on-topic, related content should look like in order to not appear spammy or manipulative.

Advice for SEOs

Natural links – Matt Cutts may be no longer at google, but over the years he has repeated ad nauseam that webmasters and SEO experts at companies should seek to acquire natural links that will help them build a reputation in Google. You can still buy links, but only in the case they don’t affect your placement in Google (aka, nofollow links).

In this post, Adam Thompson at RYP Marketing lists all 13 link building tips Matt Cutts left for the SEO community over the years.

If you still really want to push for links but stay under the ‘white hat’ umbrella, then Neil Patel’s link building advice at QuickSprout is your go-to guide.

Avoid gaming the system – Even though Matt Cutts has nothing against guest blogging for branding and recognition, he has spoken against guest blogging for SEO precisely for the reason it pollutes Google’s search rankings without adding real value for the user (often, it’s just blatant spam!) and because it’s blatant cheating (against webmasters and SEOs who put up with real efforts every single day).

Other ways to game the system include buying links that pass PageRank (NOT the toolbar PR that’s no longer updated, but Google’s main algorithm for ranking pages), stuffing and hiding keywords in the page, cloaking and sneaky redirects, etc. If you want your website to keep a good position in Google, avoid these tricks at all costs.

(Also, +1s on Google+ do NOT lead to higher rankings, so don’t delude yourself either!)

Advice for search users

Users’ needs come first – Matt Cutts always reminded webmasters and SEOs that users have priority for Google, whose aim is to serve helpful, interesting, entertaining results to users hungry for information, reference or even just fun products and services to enjoy.

Pick the most helpful results – Because you, as a user, come to Google to search for something, Google knows you will want to pick the most helpful results. Sometimes, the results you get on the first few pages in the SERPs are not what you’re looking for, however, so you are welcome to send Google feedback about the search results you get for your queries and their relevance for the scopes of your search.